No Receipt

Hello Pro

I’ve some question that would like some advice from you. I’m in California. I’ve one tenant A he live in aprtment A. This tenant has been with us over 6 months with out issue but then here is the story. A month ago tenant A came to the office and said he can only pay $700 and owe us $100 from the total of $800 rent and he will pay us back in couple days. We took it. Then time past 2 weeks we keep picking on him everyday until the new month came so now he is due $800 + $100 the total of $900 that was owe us last month. We still keep picking on him everyday for 2 more weeks. Suddenly, he said that he already paid that $100 + $800 to our manager in cash. Which I don’t belive him because he would have had receipt from it but he said that time our manager was so busy didn’t give him the receipt on both $100 and $800 which is imposible we are very careful on cash. A week before he pull this, he ask us if he can move out to apartment B which he can share with his friend tenant B since he can’t pay for apt A alone no more. We allow him now he live with Tenant B in room B. The fact is his name is on the lease agreement of apartment A and he already move out from apartment A to apartment B. Currently his name is not on apartment B lease agreement. He stay in apartment B for a week now. Apartment A and apartment B is on the same building. My question is what is the best way for me to safely get rid of this tenant A asap? He will not move out easy I’m sure. We have given him 3 days notice before while he was in Apartment A he still didn’t go. Please advice me. Thx a lot

I think you missed your chance to get rid of him. You should have evicted him for non-payment of rent while you had the chance.

First thing you need to do is to get him to sign a release saying he has given Apartment A back to you. Do that immediately. Otherwise, you can’t rent it to a new tenant because he could come back claiming he has a lease on that apartment.

You aren’t getting him out of apartment B unless he does something really wrong. To get him out of apartment B, you’ll have to evict everyone in that apartment, or else get tenant B to throw him out.

You can’t give tenant B a notice that he can’t have guests full time to get rid of A, because you gave permission for A to move in there. You can’t evict him for non-payment now because he gave the unit back to you and you gave him permission to move into the other unit.

Just why do you want him out of apartment B? That might make a difference in getting rid of him.

In future, if you give notice and the tenant doesn’t move out, file for eviction and have the judge throw him out.

Is there rent control in your area? That will make it a lot harder to get rid of that tenant.

If he still owes you rent for apartment A, take him to small claims court.

Hello Tatertot

Thanks a lot for your advice. I’ll have him sign the release on apartment A asap.
In this case do I have him sign the new lease agreement with B ? Currently he is being there without lease agreement in apartment B. I only give him an OK word to move in with B.
Can’t I just kick him out as being new as new guest in apartment B less than 28 days, and make him as guest not tenant ?
My area doesn’t have rent control. The reason that I don’t go for the eviction is because it take time and have to spend some money to it. I like your idea about small claims court. I think I’ll do that after he is out of my apartment complex. I’m sure he will be late or no pay again soon even he living with B right now. I’ll just wait to hit him with eviction as soon as he miss the pay while staying with B.

Thx a lot